Alley is one of the wonders of this continent.”
So I think now that I have seen it. It was odd too, what afterward I remembered as a coincidence, that our first talk should have turned to a spot where we were to do and to suffer, by and by.
“There is something Frenchy in the name Luggernel,” said I.
“Yes; it is a corruption of La Grenouille. There was a famous Canadian trapper of that name, or nickname. He discovered the springs. The Alley, a magnificent gorge, grand as the Via Mala, leads to them. I will describe the whole to you at length, some time.”
“Who was your English friend?”
“Sir Biron Biddulph, — a capital fellow, pink in the cheeks, warm in the heart, strong in the shanks, mighty on the hunt,”
“Hunting for love of it?”
“No; for love itself, or rather the lack of love. A lovely lady in his native Lancashire would not smile; so he turned butcher of buffalo, bears, and big-horn.”
“Named he the ‘fair but frozen maid ‘?”
“Never. It seems there is something hapless or tragic about her destiny. She did not love him; so he came away to forget her. He made no secret of it. We arrived in Utah last July, on our way to see California. There he got letters from home, announcing, as he told me, some coming misfortune to the lady. As a friend, no longer a lover, he proposed to do what he could to avert the danger. I left him in Salt Lake, preparing to return, and came across country alone.”
“Alone! through the Indian country, with that tempting iron-gray, those tempting packs, that tempting scalp, with its love-locks! Why, the sight of your scalp alone would send a thrill through every Indian heart from Bear River to the Dalles of the Columbia! Perhaps, by the way, you’ve been scalped already, and are safe?”
“No; the mop’s my own mop. Scalp’s all right. Wish I could say the same of the brains. The Indians would not touch me. I am half savage, you know. In this and my former trip, I have become a privileged character, — something of a medicine-man.”
“I suppose you can talk to them. You used to have the gift of tongues.”
“Yes; I have choked down two or three of their guttural lingos, and can sputter them up as easily as I used to gabble iambic trimeters, I like the fellows. They are not ideal heroes; they have not succeeded in developing a civilization, or in adopting ours, and therefore I suppose they must go down, as pine-trees go down to make room for tougher stalks and fruitier growth: but I like the fellows, and don’t believe in their utter deviltry. I have always given the dogs a good name, and they have been good dogs to me. I like thorough men, too; and what an Indian knows, he knows, so that it is a part of him. It is a good corrective for an artificial man to find himself less of a man, under certain difficulties, than a child of nature. You know this, of course, as well as I do.”
“Yes; we campaigners get close to the heart of Mother Nature, and she teaches us, tenderly or roughly, but thoroughly. By the way, how did you find me out?”
“I heard some Pikes, at a camp last night, talking of a person who had sold a quartz mine for a wonderful horse. I asked the name. They told me yours, and directed me here. Except for this talk, I should have gone down to San Francisco, and missed you.”
“Lucky horse! He brings old friends together, — a good omen! Come and see him.”
Across Country
I led my friend toward the corral.
“A fine horse that gray of yours,” said I.
“Yes; a splendid fellow, — stanch and true! He will go till he dies.”
“In tip-top condition, too. What do you call him?”
“Pumps.”
“Why Pumps? Why not Pistons? or Cranks? or Walking-Beams? or some part of the steam-engine that does the going directly?”
“You have got the wrong clue. I named him after our old dancing-master. Pumps the horse has a favorite amble, precisely like that skipping walk that Pumps the man used to set us for model, — a mincing gait, that prejudiced me, until I saw what a stride he kept for the time when stride was wanting.”
“Here is my black gentleman. What do you think of him?”
Don Fulano trotted up and licked a handful of corn from my hand. Corn was four dollars a bushel. The profits of the “Foolonner” Mine did not allow of such luxuries. But old Gerrian had presented me with a sack of it.
Fulano crunched his corn, snorted his thanks, and then snuffed questioningly, and afterwards approvingly, about the stranger.
“Soul and body of Bucephalus!” says Brent. “There is a quadruped that is a horse.”
“Isn’t he?” said I, thrilling with pride for him.
“To look at such a fellow is a romance. He is the most beautiful thing I ever saw.”
“No exceptions?”
“Not one.”
“Woman! lovely woman!” I cried, with mock enthusiasm.
“If I had ever seen a woman to compare with that horse, after her kind, I should not be here.”
“Where then?”
“Wherever she was. Living for her. Dying for her. Chasing her if she were dragged from me. Snatching her from the jaws of death.”
“Hold hard! You talk as furiously as if you saw such a scene before your eyes.”
“Your horse brings up all the chivalric tales I have ever read. If these were knightly days, and two brothers in arms, like you and myself, ever rescued distressed damsels from the grip of caitiffs vile, we ought to be mounted upon a pair of Don Fulanos when we rode the miscreants down.”
The fine sensitiveness of a poetic man like Brent makes a prophet of him, — that is to say, a man who has the poet’s delicate insight into character anticipates everything that character will do. So Brent was never surprised; though I confess I was, when I found men, horses, and places doing what he had hinted long before.
“Well,” continued I, ‘‘ I paid two years’ work for my horse. Was it too much? Is he worth it?”
“Everything is worth whatever one gives for it. The less you get, the more you get. Proved by the fact that the price of all life is death. Jacob served seven years for an ugly wife; why shouldn’t an honester man serve two for a beautiful horse?”
“Jacob, however, had a pretty wife thrown in when he showed discontent.”
“Perhaps you will. If the Light of the Harem of Sultan Brigham should see you prancing on that steed, she would make one bound to your crupper and leave a dark where the Light was.”
“I
